Chapter 22
BY THE MIDDLE OF THE MONTH SHE WAS TRYING TO psych herself up to begin packing – but before she did that, there was something else she had to do.
She wrote a letter, feeling like a coward. It took many drafts to get it right.
Dear Kathleen
I hope you’re finding things a little easier as time goes on.
I’m wondering if there’s anything of Damien’s you’d like to have – an item of clothing maybe, or his watch.
You or Brendan would be more than welcome to drop over and have a look through what’s here, anytime between now and when I go on the thirtieth.
I’m sorry for the way things were between us. I think I wasn’t the woman you wanted for Damien, but we truly loved one another. He was the love of my life, and I’ll never forget him.
I hope we can meet in friendship when I come back to visit, and you can enjoy spending time with your granddaughter. I intend to bring her back often so she can get to know her dad’s family. I’ll send news and photos when she arrives, and you’ll all be invited to the christening.
Take care, Kathleen.
Love, Lydia
She didn’t refer to their last ugly scene. Kathleen might well be regretting it by now. Lydia had caught sight of her a few times since then on the village street, but there had been no salute, no acknowledgement at all.
She was pretty sure her invitation wouldn’t be accepted, but she thought Brendan might be sent in her stead to choose a keepsake, and she was right. Three days later, he rang the apartment doorbell.
‘She’d like his watch,’ he said, and Lydia took it from her bedside locker drawer, and then she brought him into the spare room and invited him to choose something for himself from the bundles she’d laid out on the bed of Damien’s things.
‘Maybe the wallet,’ he said, after staring at them for a long time, and she found a bag and put both items into it – and then, without words, she and he came together in a hug, and it felt like they were closing some door that could never be opened again.
‘You’ll be back,’ he said, ‘when the baby comes?’ and she remembered him asking the same question on the day of Kathleen’s outburst.
‘Of course I will, as often as I can.’
Next morning, she phoned Deborah and told her to accept the American’s offer.
Time to set that in motion. She hadn’t told anyone of his visit to the house, or the offer he’d put in.
By the end of the day, the holding deposit had been paid.
The deal should go through quickly, with nothing to delay things at her end.
He wasn’t the owner she wanted for Chance House, but his money would enable a lot.
She phoned her parents to tell them the house had gone sale agreed, and they were as delighted as she’d expected, particularly when she told them the selling price.
She gave her father the contact details of Damien’s solicitor who’d handled the house purchase for them.
Will you get in touch? she’d asked. He’ll need to send the Chance House paperwork to Terence. She didn’t want to be involved.
The following week, she taught her last yoga classes in the studio.
She bade goodbye to her groups in turn, and each one presented her with a collective gift, although most of them had already brought something to the open afternoon.
She was given a beautiful christening shawl, a new-mother hamper of pampering products, a voucher for an online baby supply shop, a set of bedtime picture books and a pair of nursery nightlights in the shape of toadstools.
After her last group left she stood alone in the studio and cried for all she’d lost, and all that could never be. In four days she would be getting into her father’s car, and leaving this life behind.
As she carried her gifts back to the apartment, still tearful, the doorbell rang. Must be one of her students who’d forgotten something. She blotted her eyes with a sleeve and went to answer it.
‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I hope it’s not too late.’
‘Is anything wrong?’
She’d seen him this morning for her last driving lesson, her tenth half-hour in his car, and she’d presented him with the air fryer that Susan had suggested: He was asking me about mine lately – I was going to get him one for his birthday.
At the sight of it – it wasn’t wrapped – he’d given a laugh. Are you serious? he’d asked, but she could see he was pleased. He’d accepted it, and wished her well in Dublin. She hadn’t thought they’d be meeting again.
‘I wanted to run something by you,’ he said now. ‘Just an idea I had. I wasn’t going to say anything, but then I thought maybe I should. It won’t take long.’
‘Come in,’ she said, and the cat streaked from the kitchen as he entered.
‘She’s moved in,’ he said.
‘Not really. She comes and goes, just this far, and I put her out at night. Will I make tea?’
‘Not unless you want it.’ He looked more closely at her. ‘Are you alright?’
‘I’m fine.’
‘Sure?’
‘Sure.’
He leant against the worktop and folded his arms. ‘When is your baby due?’ he asked.
The abrupt change of topic threw her. ‘September the eighteenth.’
‘Roughly two months.’
She waited.
‘Remember a while back,’ he said, ‘when you told me you thought you might want to stay here, but the house didn’t suit you any more?’
He hadn’t forgotten. She nodded.
‘And I told you that you needed to find a different life.’
‘Yes.’
The shed, the new kittens. Blurting it out to him. She should tell him it didn’t matter now, not when she was leaving in a few days, and having agreed to sell the house to the first bidder.
She didn’t tell him any of that. She remained silent.
‘Do you still want to stay?’
She couldn’t stay. She had to go.
‘I want to stay,’ she said.
‘Well,’ he said, ‘it seems to me that the solution is right there in front of you, but maybe it’s not the one you want.’ He was watching her intently with those unusual eyes. ‘Tell me to mind my own business at any stage, and I’ll shut up.’
She said nothing. She waited for him to tell her how to stay.
‘It struck me that three wedding receptions have taken place here since you moved in, even though there were no facilities to speak of. No furniture, no working kitchen.’
She knew all that. What was his point?
‘Lydia,’ he said, ‘can you see what I’m getting at?’
‘Not really.’
‘I think, if this house was fully furnished, all the bedrooms good to go and the kitchen equipped, you could run it as a wedding venue, with overnight accommodation.’
A wedding venue. That was his solution? She felt a swoop of disappointment.
‘You’d only have to do one a week, say on Saturday, for it to be financially viable. You could continue with your yoga classes during the week if you wanted.’
Silence fell. It wasn’t an uncomfortable one. It was nice of him to have tried.
‘It’s an interesting idea,’ she began, not wanting to shoot him down too abruptly, ‘but the house is too small. The dining room’s capacity is just forty, and there are only eight bedrooms.’
‘So you cater for small weddings. Not everyone wants a big splashy affair, especially if it’s their second time round.
Ian and Lorraine didn’t, or the other couple you had – and as far as accommodation goes, there are plenty of places within a mile of here for the overflow.
You could put up immediate family, and the rest wouldn’t be too far away. ’
There had been no accommodation at all for her own wedding – she and Damien had been the only two to stay the night at Chance House. Nobody had seemed to mind – but it wasn’t just a matter of finding beds.
‘I know nothing about running a business,’ she said.
‘What about your yoga classes?’
‘That’s different. My students come, they spend an hour in the studio, and they go. All I had to do was take out insurance, and Tom helped me with that.’
‘And Tom could help you with something on a bigger scale too. I run my own business, and so does Greta, and Susan has a fair bit of admin to do for the school. We could all help set you up.’
One wedding a week. Just one night a week she’d have to keep guests. Paying guests – but quite a lot of them, if she filled all eight rooms. ‘I couldn’t do it on my own.’
‘You’d need an assistant,’ he agreed. ‘Someone to help prepare the bedrooms, and to be there on the day, and you’d want at least one chef too.’
Cathy. Cathy could be the chef, and she was reasonably sure she could find an assistant within the community. She felt something fire into being inside her – but then she reined herself in.
‘The ensuites have no toilets or sinks or showers. The kitchen has nothing either, not even worktops.’
‘Brendan would organise someone for all that,’ he said. ‘As long as the plumbing’s in place, sinks and that could be installed in a couple of days. And you could ask the owner of the restaurant where Damien worked to advise you on kitchen appliances.’
‘But even with all that done, it’s still unfurnished. No cooking utensils, no crockery or cutlery or glassware. It hasn’t so much as a fork. And there’s no bedroom furniture, no linens or towels, no shower curtains, no bath mats.’
So much. It was overwhelming – but he had an answer for that too. ‘Marian and Susan are on holidays till the end of August. I bet they’d love a project.’
Lydia bet they would too. Between them, they were a formidable team.
She could just imagine them trawling through furniture shops and home stores, picking out beds, wardrobes, couches, and all the rest of it.
And if she could work out a payment plan with Brendan for the final bill he’d postponed, she had a budget.
Not enormous, but maybe enough if they were careful.
And he was right about Kieran, Damien’s old boss. He’d tell her what to get for the kitchen. They could sit down together, all of them, and make a list. Make lists.
God, was it possible? Could she do it? Could she stay here?
‘Gareth could organise a website for you, to get the word out. And then you’d be good to go, once everything was in place, and you’d had the baby.’
And at the mention of the baby, she came to her senses.
‘I can’t,’ she said. ‘A new business and a new baby – it’s too much, Andrew. I couldn’t possibly take all that on. Even with people to help me, I would be the one in charge, and it’s just . . . too much.’
He let seconds pass, holding eye contact. ‘OK,’ he said then. ‘I just thought I should mention it, in case there was a chance you went for it.’
A chance. A second chance.
‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘I appreciate you trying to help.’
‘One last thing,’ he said. ‘The wedding photos. Since you’re leaving, I thought maybe you’d want to have them.’
‘Oh . . .’ She didn’t think she was ready to face them yet, but she couldn’t just walk away without claiming them. ‘Yes, I would like them, thank you.’ She was forever thanking him for something. ‘And please let me know what I owe.’
‘A food processor,’ he said, ‘would be nice,’ and it was only by the eyebrow that she knew he was joking. ‘I’ll drop them in,’ he said, ‘before you go. I’ll get Denny’s too.’
She would tuck them away at the bottom of a suitcase. She would wait until they wouldn’t break her heart all over again.